A plea for freedom from Ukraine

This video has been viewed more than 2 million times since being posted just over a week ago. (YouTube screen grab)

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As the international community monitors the violence in Ukraine, a video filmed in the heart of the protest is being shared around the world.

In it, a young women from Kiev makes a plea for freedom.

“We want to be free,” she says. “We have this freedom inside our hearts. We have this freedom in our minds, and now I ask you to help build this freedom in our country.”

While the woman in front of the camera is Ukrainian, the man behind the lens is an American.

This video, titled “I am a Ukrainian,” was posted on Youtube by documentary filmmaker Ben Moses.

He says he was in Ukraine for a film screening when he was approached by a mutual friend. She ended up filming the message from the Maidan, the main square in Kiev, and Ben did the editing.

“And at dinner one night she said, ‘we have to get this message out to the rest of the world. It isn’t enough to just tell Ukranians that we have to change the government, we have to tell the world. We need their support,'” Ben says.

The young woman is not a political figure, just an average Ukrainian, and Ben says she is very concerned for her safety.